Great Falls Police Chief David Bowen reads a prepared statement about an officer involved shooting that took place on Monday morning at 52nd Street and 10th Avenue North.(Photo: TRIBUNE PHOTO/RION SANDERS)Buy Photo

Monday's fatal officer-involved shooting in Great Falls marked the eighth incident statewide in 2017, higher than any of the past six years, according to the state's Division of Criminal Investigation.

The scene felt familiar on Monday in front of the Great Falls Police Station, when chief Dave Bowen stood before reporters and camera crews, explaining the few details of an officer-involved shooting available a few hours after the incident. Bowen had made a similar appearance, with a few of the same lines, in a media briefing in the same parking lot exactly three months earlier.

The Division of Criminal Investigation has investigated 28 officer-involved shootings since 2012, said DCI Administrator Bryan Lockerby. Three of those come from Great Falls, with incidents in April, September and Dec. 11 of this year.

There have been six other incidents, bringing to the total to 34, in that same time frame that DCI did not investigate, as some local department's policies are to self-investigate or request a neighboring department look into the matter. Police departments typically reach out to the state agency involved to remove any conflict of interest from the investigation into the shooting.

In 2012, DCI investigated three officer-involved shootings; six in 2013; four in 2014; seven in 2015, three in 2016 and five in 2017. Additionally, there were three in 2016 not investigated by DCI, along with another three this year being investigated by different agencies.

"It's concerning that this is increasing," Lockerby said. "From a professional sense, the streets are getting more violent. It just seems to be possibly drugs, mental health crisis. It could be a number of things, and it's very unfortunate."

For 2017 alone, Billings Police Department currently has four open officer-involved shooting cases, "the most open officer-involved shootings that the Billings Police Department has ever had," said Captain Kevin Iffland, who administers the internal investigations into these incidents.

"We are seeing a lot of these drug components or drug-related issues with them, (along with) willingness to not cooperate with law enforcement in these circumstances," Iffland said. "Every one of these could have been avoided, if they just listened to officers."

Incidents in Billings this year include the hours-long standoff at Big Bear Sports Center that ended with Frank Joey Half Jr. being shot and killed by police. Another man was shot and killed after ramming two police cars in mid-November, while another survived being shot by police after pointing a shotgun at officers.

Members of the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Department SWAT team stage near Big Bear Sports Center during a standoff between law enforcement and Frank Joey Half Jr. who barricaded and armed himself inside the building Saturday. He was found dead inside the store.(Photo: CASEY PAGE, Gazette Staff)

The Billings Police Department does differ from other large municipalities in self-investigating the incidents, then sending the files to DCI for an independent review, the Billings Gazette reported last month.

The first thing Billings PD does after an officer-involved shooting incident is gather information about the shooting, Iffland said, while "foremost" is dealing with the officers who were involved and making sure they have the tools they need after a traumatic event. Those tools include employee assistance programs, providing someone to talk to them and letting them know about the process that's going to unfold over the next several months.

"Number one, we normally place another officer with them right after the incident," Iffland said. "The officer is to be their go-to person, to get them where they need to be."

Iffland said the "go-to person" is always someone who was not involved in the incident.

These incidents can also be somewhat worrisome to an entire department, considering a rising national discussion about police and use of force.

"When something like that happens, it puts an entire department on edge," said Kalispell Police Chief Roger Nasset, whose department had an officer-involved shooting in January 2016.

Nasset said the department is concerned for both the officer and the individual shot by police, but "a situation like that can literally change an officer's career in a split second, physical or psychologically."

Nasset himself was a part of an officer-involved shooting in 1998. He shot a robbery suspect who survived and was later convicted. He said the emotional impact was worse than expected.

"You know, it's a flood of emotions," he said. "You prepare for these things really from the day you were hired, and you have it in your mindset that it's something you never want to do, but when it's a reality, it's something you never thought it would be."

The investigation into officer-involved shootings has changed since 1998, Nasset said, with more emphasis on the emotional trauma police incur during these incidents. Some officers go through the worst-case scenarios and come through just fine, while there might be some who need help.

"Law enforcement officers are notorious for wanting to be tough and macho because we think that's what everyone believes we are," he said. "We sometimes forget to ask for help because we think it might be a sign of a weakness, and we're learning that might not be the case."

Nasset said his department has changed its procedures that follow officer-involved shootings as a result of that realization. While officers used to undergo an internal administrative review process shortly after the incident, the department now gives officers 24 to 72 hours to recover psychologically before they are reviewed. Nasset said he was reviewed the same day as his shooting incident.

In Great Falls, the department waits until after the DCI investigation is complete to have all the information before reviewing the officer, said GFPD Sgt. and Media Relations Officer Jim Wells. The administrative review takes place after incidents requiring use of force, pursuits or any significant call to determine if internal protocol was followed correctly. The time between incident and review often depends on the seriousness of the event, Wells said.

The Sept. 11 shooting incident in Great Falls, for example, has not had an internal administrative review yet three months after the incident. The April shooting incident already has been completed, although Wells said he didn't recall how long after the incident the review took place. But when it did, the department had all the information gathered from DCI.

Great Falls Police Sgt. Jim Wells addresses journalists at the scene of an officer-involved shooting that occurred about 10:30 a.m. Monday near 10th Avenue North and 52nd Street. Tribune photo/Seaborn Larson

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Nasset said he would not be concerned that a review might not happen until several months have passed.

"It depends on the incident," he said. "If you asked me about the incident from 20 years ago, I can tell you second by second what occurred. It was that traumatic of a situation to me. Another person, you interview them in an hour (after the incident), they might not remember anything. You give them an opportunity to settle down.. and they may remember much better.

"If you look at the psychological studies, there's a science behind it," he said. "We want to do the right thing, we want to get the correct story."

As the numbers show a rise in officer-involved shootings during the last six years, Lockerby said the state agency investigating these incidents already has had to turn some investigations away.

"There was a shooting in Livingston, but we were investigating two others, and we just didn't have the staff to do it, so Bozeman PD stepped up," he said. In these cases, Lockerby said DCI lets the originating agency decide who investigates. The Gallatin County Sheriff's Office also assisted in the Livingston investigation, Lockerby said.

And while eight statewide officer-involved shootings may seem small, Lockerby said that ratio is actually on par with national statistics when considered on a per-capita basis. Similarly, these incidents are occurring in the state's larger municipalities.

"National news and everything put a spotlight on it in the last couple years," Iffland said. "With that... we just need to make sure our officers are trained properly on any use of force, especially deadly use of force."

Nasset said his officers are happy with the body cameras his department installed before the officer-involved shooting in 2016. So far, the conversation about installing body cameras on police has not made its way to the Great Falls city commission chambers.

But when looking at the spark of these incidents, Nasset agrees that drugs, alcohol and mental health are big contributors. Montana's rise in methamphetamine has jarred several state agencies, including the Department of Public Health and Human Services, which reported that 42 percent of all Child and Family Services cases involve meth. Meanwhile, both Great Falls Police Department and the Cascade County Sheriff's Office have undergone training this year on crisis situations involving mental health issues.

He said officers and departments can come out more cohesive after these incidents than they were before.

"A tragic event like that brings that family even closer; you feel that support," he said. "We're out there together, and we've got to watch each other's back. The officers understand better than anybody the trauma that happens to an officer in an event like this."